Le 19-nov.-08, à 07:13, Russell Standish a écrit :
> I think Alice was indeed not a zombie,
I think you are right.
COMP + MAT implies Alice (in this setting) is not a zombie.
> and that her consciousness
> supervened on the physical activity stimulating her output gates (the
> cosmic explosion that produced the "happy rays"). Are you suggesting
> that she was a zombie?
Not at all. (Not yet ...).
>
> I can see the connection with Tim Maudlin's argument, but in his case,
> the machinery known as Olympia is too simple to be conscious (being
> nothing more than a recording - simpler than most automata anyway),
> and the machinery known as Klara was in fact stationary, leading to a
> rather absurd proposition that consciousness would depend on a
> difference in an inactive machine.
>
> In your case, the cosmic explosion is far from inactive,
This makes the movie graph argument immune against the first half of
Barnes objection. But let us not anticipate on the sequel.
> and if a star
> blew up in just such a way that its cosmic rays produced identical
> behaviour to Alice taking her exam (consciously), I have no problems
> in considering her consciousness as having supervened on the cosmic
> rays travelling from that star for that instant. It is no different to
> the proverbial tornado ripping through one of IBM's junk yards and
> miraculously assembling a conscious computer by chance.
Does everyone accept, like Russell, that, assuming COMP and MAT, Alice
is not a zombie? I mean, is there someone who object? Remember we are
proving implication/ MAT+MECH => <something>. We never try to argue
about that <something> per se. Eventually we hope to prove MAT+MECH =>
false, that is NOT(MAT & MECH) which is equivalent to MAT implies NOT
MECH, MECH => NOT MAT, etc.
(by MAT i mean materialism, or naturalism, or physicalism or more
generally "the physical supervenience thesis", according to which
consciousness supervenes on the physical activity of the brain.
If no one objects, I will present MGA 2 (soon).
>
> Of course you know my opinion that the whole argument changes once you
> consider the thought experiment taking place in a multiverse.
We will see (let us go step by step for not confusing the audience).
Thanks for answering.
Bruno Marchal
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Received on Wed Nov 19 2008 - 07:00:19 PST